A Time Traveler's Masquerade: A McQuivey's Costume Shop Romance

Romance blossoms when Isla Crawford steps into McQuivey's Costume Shop in London and is swept back in time to 1605, where she and Lord Bancroft attempt to thwart Guy Fawkes's Gunpowder Plot.

One moment, Isla Crawford is inside McQuivey's Costume Shop trying on a Jacobean-style gown for the parliamentary Autumn Ball, and the next, she is standing in an unfamiliar garden, barefoot, coatless, and at the mercy of a fierce storm. Confused, she seeks refuge in a Tudor manor, where she discovers that she has inexplicably traveled back to 1605, mere weeks before the culmination of Guy Fawkes's infamous Gunpowder Plot.

Simon Hartworth, Lord Bancroft, finds his orderly seventeenth-century life disrupted when a mysterious woman appears on his sister's doorstep during a storm. Intrigued by the stranger's quirks and bewildering speech, he feels compelled to protect her and heed her warnings about a fatal plot against Parliament. As Simon is drawn into Isla's dangerous scheme to stop the evildoers, he can't help but also feel drawn to her.

With seemingly no way to get back home, Isla uses her twenty-first-century knowledge of the past to try to thwart Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators without altering the course of history forever. She and Simon must race to unravel the threads of the treasonous plot even as they wonder how their hearts will navigate their deepening connection and the seemingly insurmountable four centuries that separate their lives.


Author: Sian Ann Bessey
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Published: 04/01/2025
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781639933822


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 04/01/2025 pg. 49

About the Author
Sian Ann Bessey was born in Cambridge, England, and grew up on the island of Anglesey off the coast of North Wales. She left her homeland to attend university in the US, where she earned a bachelor's degree in communications, with a minor in English.

She began her writing career publishing several articles in magazines while still in college. Since then, she had published historical romance and romantic suspense novels, along with a variety of children's books. She is a USA Today best-selling author, a RONE Award runner-up, a Foreword Reviews Book of the Year finalist, and a Whitney Award finalist.

Sian and her husband, Kent, are the parents of five children and the grandparents of four beautiful girls and two handsome boys. They currently live in southeast Idaho, and although Sian doesn't have the opportunity to speak Welsh very often anymore, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch still rolls off her tongue.

Traveling, reading, cooking, and being with her grandchildren are some of Sian's favorite activities. She also loves hearing from her readers. If you would like to contact her, she can be reached through her website at www.sianannbessey.com. You can also follow her Facebook page, Sian Ann Bessey, or join her Facebook group, Author Sian Ann Bessey's Corner. Find her on Instagram, @sian_bessey.